One Issue Voters
I recently heard a piece on the radio concerning the upcoming Gubernatorial race in Virginia. Currently Virginia has an extremely popular Democrat
Governor who cannot run again due to term limits. His Lieutenant Governor, also a Democrat, is running against a Republican whose style was dubbed
"folksy." During the radio piece, the correspondent noted that the two biggest issues confronting the state are Education and the dismal state of the
roads. The piece cut to a speech by the Democrat contender in which he addressed the education issue. Then the piece went on to say how the
Republicans were attacking the Democrat on his anti-death penalty stance. Finally, a Virginia voter was interviewed who said (more or less) - "I've
been a member of the NRA since 1980, and [the Republican] is for the NRA, so I'm for him."
I don't know which of the candidates would make a better Governor for Virginia, but I get the feeling that the voter that was interviewed doesn't know
either. Mr. NRA is what I would call a One Issue Voter [OIV]. It doesn't matter where the candidate stands on any other issue, so long as he is for
NRA, I'm voting for him. There are plenty of OIV's in this country on both sides of the political isle. There are OIV's that will only vote for someone if
they are pro-choice or pro-life or pro-NRA, or pro-ACLU, or pro-prayer-in-school, or pro-tree hugging, or whatever. Oftentimes these issues are
hallmarks of a political philosophy, which means that the OIV will probably get what he wants (or deserves, as the case may be). But sometimes a
litmus test like this can give you false results. I would be willing to bet that there are at least a few members of Congress that are pro-NRA, but are
Democrats and liberal on other issues. There will always be exceptions to the rule.
OIV's represent the ideal in a two party system. They are the ultimate black and white. They reduce everything down to one question and either you
are with them or you are against them. But this isn't really how we want voters to choose, is it? This kind of decision making takes the easy way out;
voters don't have to think about any other issue except their litmus test issue. This way of thinking promotes uninformed voting.
Many important issues aren't quite as simple as the litmus test issues. Stem cell research is an issue that is extremely important to the future of medicine,
but is also an issue that has divided the Republican party. If someone chooses a candidate based on whether they are pro-NRA or not, their candidate
could fall on either side of the stem cell research debate. The main problem here isn't that a voter will end up voting for someone that believes in things
the voter doesn't, the main problem is that the voter won't even recognize that these other issues exist, or won't bother to form their own opinion on the
matter because they will assume that they have the same opinion as the candidate that passes their litmus test.
Q: What do you think about stem cell research?
A: I don't know, Joe-Bob is pro-NRA, what does he think?
Does that make any sense at all? What is even worse is that many of the litmus test issues are ones that have the smallest effect on voters' day-to-day
lives. These politicians will decide how to fund your children's schools, but you pick them based on whether they support gay marriage or not? What?
Is that really the most important issue facing our society? Is that issue worth giving up an opinion on school funding, road construction finance, balanced
budgets, social security reform, health care reform, stem cell research, and the rising cost of energy?
And For No Apparent Reason
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